The St. John's Review Volume XL, number two ( 1990-91) Editor Elliott Zuckerman Editorial Board Eva Brann Beate Ruhm von Oppen Joe Sachs Cary Stickney John Van Doren Robert B. Williamson Subsc1iptions Assistant Louis Lucchetti The St.John's Review is published three times a year by the Office ofthe Dean, St. John's College, Annapolis; Christopher B. Nelson, President; Eva Brann, Dean. For those not on the distribution list, subscriptions are $15.00 per year. Unsolicited essays, stmies, poems, and reasoned letters are welcome. Address correspondence to the Review, St. John's College, P.O. Box 2800, Annapolis, MD 21404-2800. Back issues are available, at $5.00 per issue, from the St. John's College Bookstore. ©1991 St. John's College. All rights reserved; reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. ISSN 0277-4720 Desktop Publishing and Printing The St. John's College Print Shop Contents St. John's "For Ever" Charlotte Fletcher m Editor ',s Preface IV Author's Preface I One: King William's School and the College of William and Mm-y 15...... Two: An Endowed King William's School Plans to Become a College 29. Three: King William's School Survives the Revolution 43. Four: 1784: The Year St. Jolm's College was Named 59. Five: John McDowell, Federalist: President of St. John's College 69 Notes 87 Results of St. John's Crossword Number One 89. St. John's Crossword Number Two Trout Editor's Preface Charlotte Fletcher was the Librarian of St. John's College from 1944 to 1980. The five essays that appear in this issue are somewhat revised versions of essays that were first published separately in the Maryland Historical Magazine, as follows: "1784: The Year St. John's College was Named." Vol. 74 (1979), pp. 133-51. "King William's School and the College of William and Mary." Vol. 78 (1983), pp. 118-28. "King William's School Plans to Become a College." Vol. 80 (1985), pp. 157-66. "King William's School Survives the Revolution." Vol. 81 (1986), pp. 210-21. "John McDowell, Federalist: President of St. John's College." Vol. 84 (1989), pp. 242-51. We thank the Mmyland Historical Magazine for permission to reprint them. It is, we think, useful to have them all within one set of covers. E.Z. iii Author's I Preface There was a time when those of us who were expected to answer queries about the early history of St. John's College depended on undocumented histories and on two articles by Tench Francis Tilghman that appeared in the Maryland Historical Mal',azine in June 1949 and June 1950. Tilghman's book, The Early History of St. John's College, was not published until 1984. He refers often to the Archives of Maryland, the Minutes of the Visitors and Governors, the Maryland Gazette, the Maryland Senate Journal, and the House Journal. His research led him to question the connection between King William's School and St. John's College. He found no answer to the persistent question of why St. John's was named St. John's; nor was he sure about the details of John McDowell's early appointment to the faculty and the presidency of the College. He raised questions that I hoped to answer. During the tricentennial celebration of Anne Arundel County in 1949, Mr. and Mrs. Robert G. Henry had allowed the College to exhibit a series of letters written by John McDowell that were among the Goldsborough papers at "Myrtle Grove." (There was no McDowell correspondence in the College archives.) Later, at the time of the constitutional bicentennial in 1976, I was ei1couraged by Rebecca Wilson, then Director of Public Relations at the College, to wiite an article on McDowell; and in the summer of 1977 President Richard Weigle granted me two months' leave from my library duties for research and writing. I found that the project was more extended than I had anticipated. Before I could understand the circumstances leading to the appointment of McDowell I had to know more about the politics of his era. For background I read Douglas Southall Freeman's biography of George Washington. Cumulatively, through day-by-day entries, Washington emerges as a man head and shoulders above his contemporaries. I chose to adopt Freeman's technique of examining day-by-day accounts. I read the Maryland Gazette and the house and senate journals covering the days of the November 1984 session of the Maryland Assembly when St. IV PREFACE v John's was chartered. These and the letters of Rev. William Smith were major sources for my first article: "1784; The Year St. John's College was Named." Again I found that I needed to search more deeply in order to answer the questions I had about John McDowell. In particular, I had to know more about King William's School. The results of this research were published in my next three m1icles: "King William's School and the College of William and Mary"; "King William's School Plans to Become a College"; and "King William's School Survives the RevolUtion." By the time I wrote the fifth article, "John McDowell, Federalist: President of St. John's College," I knew that it was the Rev. William Smith who brought to fmition fifty years of attempts to found a Maryland college. He wrote the charters of both Washington College and St. John's College. McDowell had attended the College of Philadelphia when Smith was its provost, and it was the Philadelphia connection that was crucial in bringing McDowell to Maryland. I am grateful to the helpful staff of the following libraries and archives: the St. John's College Library; the Maryland State Archives; the Historical Society of. Pennsylvania Archives; the Archives of the Histmical Collection of the Episcopal Church; the Maryland State Library; the Archives in the Swemm Library of the College of William and Mary; the Archives of Nimitz Library, U.S. Naval Academy; the Garrett Library of the Milton Eisenhower Library of the Johns Hopkins Univer~ity; and the Archives of the Library of Congress. For their critical comments in the preparation of the essay on the naming of the College I am grateful to Eva Brann, Mmy Fletcher, Phebe Jacobsen, Mildred Trivers, Margaret Ross, Harriet Sheehy, Allison Karslake, and Kathryn Kinzer. For clitical comments while I prepared the other articles I am grateful to Mary Fletcher, James Tolber1, and Phebe Jacobsen.! thank Nancy Jordan for her skill and care in typing four of the manuscripts. I especially thank Elliott Zuckennan, who suggested publishing the five essays together and who carefully edited them into a consistent whole; and Christina Davidson, whose skills in graphic design and word processing helped produce this issue of the St. John's Review. Charlotte Fletcher Annapalis, May I 991 "• p E / I //_ I <) (Fig. 1) Counties of Maryland and the Pennsylvania Border. The three western­ most counties, Washington, Allegany, and Garrett, were not incorporated until 1776, 1789, and 1872 respectively. One: King William's School and the College of William and Mary Long after Maryland was chmtered by Lord Baltimore, its English overlords continued to treat Maryland as if it were part of Virginia. For example, in the last decade of the seventeenth century, officers of the Crown and the Church helped found a college in Virginia named William and Mary and a free school in Maryland named King William's School. By charter William and Mary College was given the entire revenue from a one-penny tax on every pound of tobacco exported from both the Maryland and the Virginia plantations to coun­ tries outside England, Wales, and Scotland; no portion of the tax upon what Mmyland's plantations produced was reserved for a free school in Maryland. According to Maryland's Governor Francis Nicholson and Rev. Thomas Bray, the Bishop ofLondon's Conmtissary for Maryland, the college in Virginia should be of great benefit to Maryland youths who wanted a higher education. At the time the two institutions were founded, some members of the General Assembly shared this expectation, an expectation that was never fulfilled. It was many years before a restored proprietary government in Maryland awarded the Atmapolis free school a revenue comparable to what the Crown had given William and Mary College in perpetuity by charter. In 1632 King Charles the First carved two ribs from Virgirtia north of the Potomac and gave them to Cecilius Calve1t, second Lord Baltimore, who called the territory Maryland in honor of Queen Hernietta Maria. It became a home for families of Calvert's own faith, the Roman Catholic, and of many other sects. As early as 1671, Calvert proposed that a college be founded within the province of Maryland, but his proposal foundered in an overwhelmingly Protestant lower house of the Assembly- the upper house, or Council, appointed by the Propri­ etor was wholly Catholic- on the question of whether instruction should be Catholic, Protestant, or both. 1 2 THE ST. JOHN'S REVIEW Twenty years later, when a royal governor, Francis Nicholson, who was a strong Church of England man, urged the Assembly to build a free school and both houses agreed - though they insisted that they wanted not one free school but many free schools - there was no controversy. An Act of Assembly in 1692 had excluded Catholics from both houses and had also imposed a tax on all free holders to support the Church of England throughout the newly drawn parishes of the province. 2 Free school did not mean "free education; it meant a school that made its students free by giving them a liberal education.